Good Timing

Lexi and I went to Tahoe again this weekend. We managed to miss the snow and traffic going in and out of Tahoe. It was the inaugural weekend for our new skis. The extra powder made it a little tough for me as I had never been skiing in it before. I had a tough first 3 days. My boots were pinching. I took a bad fall at Heavenly, luckily my new helmet kept me from hitting my face and the powder kept me from breaking anything. It was a most spectacular looking fall. I had slowly made my way down what had turned out to be a very mogully black run. When I got near enough to the bottom, I took off straight down the rest of the hill, to build speed for the flat area coming up. The flat area turned out be very bumpy. I couldn't start a turn because I was bouncing all over the place. I then made the classic mistake of trying to pizza cut to slow down. Both edges caught suddenly and I slammed flat down on my face into a pile of powder. No rolls, no tumbles, just smack into a dead stop. I was covered in snow. This was part of the reason I've decided I don't like Heavenly. They insist on putting bumps everywhere on their mountain. It's nearly impossible to find a flat, fast, groomed, blue or black run. Nearly every blue is at least bumpy. They also don't believe in grooming. They let the powder pile up into these annoying obstacles that make skiing more of a chore than a pleasure. Lexi assures me that I will grow to enjoy the challenge of moguls, but I'm definitely not there yet.

On our last night in Tahoe, we scheduled an hour massage at the Spa at Harrah's. It was a little pricey, but they do let you chill out in their jacuzzi for an hour before or after your treatment. We split a bottle of champagne right before our treatments. After the champagne, an hour in the jacuzzi and an hour massage, we felt like a million bucks. It's probably why we played so well that night (read below).

The last day of skiing was great. We went to Kirkwood where they actually groom their slopes. I tore up the blues and blacks on my new skis and my boots were feeling much better. I was kind of down after the second day of falling on my face at heavenly so I really needed that last day at Kirkwood to pick me up. Lexi thinks that the boots and skis weren't feeling right earlier in the weekend because I was skiing unfamiliar terrain. It seems that way and I certainly hope that's what was wrong with them.

We had a great weekend at the tables. We cleared $390 in profit. Our last night was great. I got caught pushing a few early hands too aggressively (An AK that didn't hit anything and KK that got beat by someone catching an A) Then the cards started hitting for Lexi and I like mad. We have this technique we use on limit tables. We enter a table separately so no one knows we're married. Then, when the first of us to act raises, the other re-raises with anything but the worst hand. The idea is to build the pot and also push out the speculative hands that could bust our big hands if they hit. It also establishes the two of us as the primary aggressors, which helps us push people out later. This time when Lexi raised on her pair of Aces, I reraised with a J4 of hearts. We got another person to reraise after and I reraised him, capping the first round betting. Then the flop came 4-4-8. I got a few rounds of raises out of him and he was sick to see that I had raised J-4 of hearts. After that and a few other good hands where my rags hit miracles, I was up 150 and Lexi was up 100. It was a great night, but it sent me off tilt on my internet poker the next night where I lost 300+. The lesson I learned is that I can control my play when I'm down, but I need to learn to control my play when I'm up. I don't get discouraged into playing bad hands by bad cards, but this last run of good luck had me playing too loose for the next day and it cost me. Still, atleast it's the internet poker losses. It's only 60 we've invested and we're still at around 450 in the account.

I really needed this break. I don't think there's another place we could enjoy ourselves as much as we do when we're skiing and playing poker at Tahoe.